Rust!

While at last weekend's quilt show, I met Lois Jarvis (here, too). She made the Ground Zero quilt that was on display at the show and had a lovely booth. This is a sample piece of her rust dyeing--it's amazing. So, I bought a rust dyeing kit that included this cd and everything needed to try it out including prepared for dyeing (pfd) fabric so I could just dive in. Let's make rust!

I didn't get to it Saturday (and it was a shame because it was hot this weekend) and ended up getting things going after dark Sunday night. (It's getting dark way too early now!) We have a street lamp across from our house so I worked on the front steps and my fabric has been dyeing itself all week there, to the consternation of the squirrels and confusion of my hubby's friends.

So here it is, all wrapped and tied to cook away in the sun. I got an inexpensive plain toolbox from HobbyLobby to hold the dyeing fabric and give me a place to rinse it out and, hopefully, store some of the dyeing equipment. It got cool and rainy but I figured that would be okay because it would just dye more slowly and I won't have time to unwrap it until this weekend.

I had also purchased some iron filings and decided to try magnet dyeing--I placed a magnet cut out into a pumpkin shape in a plastic veg tray. I laid a piece of damp pfd fabric on it and sprinkled on the iron filing. Supposedly they would gravitate to the magnet. I added salt and let it sit over night. This is what I got.

Here are the rinsed pieces. Not very pumpkin like but kinda cool. This fabric is certainly stained! I learned that unless I wanted to smell like iron all day I need to wear gloves. And not wash things out in the bathroom sink.

Here's the fabric bundle on day two. Not much change.

Here's day four. I got more copper wire to wrap the outside layer. (I did a double layer--of course I can't follow instructions!)

Here's the underside on day four. Gettin' rusty!

I didn't get a shot this morning but it was looking pretty gross--which seems to me to be a good thing. I went out and got some additional supplies--more steel wool, face masks (just cheapies), coffee filters to filter the rinse water, a cheap strainer to hold the coffee filters. My starter kit included gloves and synthrapol to wash the fabrics in when they're done. I also rounded up some yogurt containers from recycling (the quart size) to use to hold my new stash of rusty bits.